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Tuesday, March 1, 2011

I am such a slacker. I mentioned that I'd be having a giveaway in my last post and then got completely sidetracked by other stuff, well wait no more! I'm officially opening up the giveaway for entry and the prize is a $50 GC to anything your little heart desires from CSN Stores. For example, it could go a long way towards getting a few (and I mean very few, these things are pricey!) of these adorable little guys or maybe a dozen of these cuties. And all you have to do to throw your hat into the ring is:

1. Leave a comment telling me what you'd get with your $50 CSN Stores GC. It doesn't have to be food related, but hey, that's what my blog is about, so let's face it, it probably will be ;)
2. Make sure you leave contact information in your post! Be it your email or a link to your blog/site/profile where I can find your email. If I don't have a way to contact you in 2 days after the contest closes, I'll be forced to pick a different winner...and quite frankly that involves more work for me. Have I mentioned the laziness?
3. Bonus Entry: A friend has recently asked me for gluten and dairy free recipes and while I have one, I'm seriously lacking in that department. So, if any of you have good recipes you're willing to share or great sites you know of (my favorite so far is the infamous Mrs. Tartlette), let me know and I will give you an extra chance to win!

You have until midnight CST on March 7th to get in your entries. Good luck!

Contest is now closed and the winner will be announced shortly. Thank you all for participating!

Whew! And now onto the reason you guys come here, the recipe! There isn't much of a story that goes with these, I felt like making S'More cookies, so I did. I had a box of graham crackers lying around and I whipped up a batch of strawberry marshmallows to fill. Dunked into a vat of melted chocolate and allowed to dry these were pretty good. I might pipe on a lot more marshmallow onto these next time and maybe slip in an extra disk of chocolate, but they were quite tasty as is.

1. Arrange the graham cracker squares on a flat surface. You want them to be ready once the marshmallow fluff is done or it will start to set before you get a chance to pipe.
2. Pour 1/3 cup cold water into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Sprinkle with gelatin; let stand until softened, 5 minutes.
3. Stir together granulated sugar, jam, corn syrup, salt, and 1/4 cup water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring often. Continue to boil until syrup registers 238 degrees on a candy thermometer (soft-ball stage).
4. Add syrup to gelatin. Beat on low speed until slightly cooled. Gradually raise speed to high, beating until mixture is cool and peaks form, 20 to 30 minutes. You can mix in red food coloring if you like, one drop at a time, to achieve desired shade of pink, but I skipped it and still got a very soft pink hue.
5. Working quickly, spoon the fluff into a pastry bag fitted with a large plain round tip and pipe a square of fluff just inside the edges of each graham cracker.
6. Let the marshmallow set for an hour or so to dry. Melt the chocolate in the microwave in 30 second intervals, or in a bain marie, and start dunking. I only wanted the chocolate on top but you can do whatever you like here. Dunk the top or the whole thing, it's up to you. I also sprinkled a few graham cracker crumbs on top to make it pretty(and cover up my bumpy marshmallow piping job).
7. Allow the chocolate to set either on the counter at room temp, or slide the tray into the fridge/freezer for a few minutes to speed things up.

i did a gluten-free/dairy-free search in my recipe bookmarks, and these are the winners that came up:http://www.bookofyum.com/blog/gluten-free-vegetarian-nut-butter-potato-cakes-and-roasted-garlic-cauliflower-recipe-1618.html

And at CSN, I'd probably go for some new mixing bowls (Le Creuset set $14.95) and a wire whisk set ($24.90) and a Cuisinart blender. That may be over $50, but at least that card would cut down the price.

I really like this recipe! If I had 50 dollars to CSN I would put it towards a food processor. My family owns a restaurant and I am constantly making new recipes and dishes to add to our menu during my free time. I don't have one and it would help a TON with creating new things!

Oh boy, I actually need a lot of things for my kitchen lol! But first and most important I'd probably get a standing/hand mixer. Then some baking pans and a food processor. Maybe a juicer too! Yeah, that's probably over $50 but that's alright hehe.

As for a gluten-free recipe, I don't have that many but I am making sweet peanut soup today. It's quite simple, just a cup of blanched raw peanuts, 6-7 cups water and sugar to taste! Just soak the peanuts in water overnight, then boil them in a pot for 3 hours and then add as much sugar as you'd like in them. Simple but the peanuts are soft and tasty!

If I were to receive the giftcard, I would use it towards helpful kitchen tools such as spatulas, pans, maybe even little ramekins.I move away from home to go to university next year and I will be cooking all my food for myself, and I don't really have much of anything in the way of supplies yet!You can contact me at: jocelyn.boere@gmail.com

A great recipe site is epicurious.com, you can search for whatever you want to make. Then on the left hand side it says "refine this search by" and under dietary considerations you can choose wheat/gluten-free or vegan, for milk-free.

Anyways - I am a poor college student so that 50 bucks would be a GREAT help.

As for your contest, I am setting out on an adventure and moving from the Midwest to Hawaii to be with the love of my life, who is stationed there with the US Army. I keep coming across recipes for individual baked eggs, and Nigella Lawson's version with cream and truffle oil has me dreaming of slow, simple Sunday morning breakfasts with my sweetheart (see Nigella Express for the recipe!). Unfortunately, I do not have ramekins to bake the eggs in.

That in mind, I would be thrilled to purchase a set of ramekins - either Le Creuset's beautiful cobalt blue (http://www.csnstores.com/Le-Creuset-PG1627-0930-LEC1898.html) or the classic white Corningware (http://www.csnstores.com/Corningware-1079640-CGW1269.html).

Love your blog! We were wondering if we can feature it on our site. We will be launching a new network for food bloggers, foodies and amateur chefs and would love to have you be part of it. You can visit us at http://knapkins.com